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Damage spells are too weak.

Zelse

Posted 17 June 2018 - 08:23 AM

Zelse

(2) Evoker

Members

98 posts

playing on POTD

This mostly concerns Druid,Wizard (and Priest) and only their damage (offensive) spells. Chanter and Cipher both got at least 1 acceptable spell and since both chanter and druid dont use [spells per encounter] you can just reuse that one good spell over and over without issues just like the ability classes.

Spells for utility are great, spells for buffs/debuffs/healing and summons are great. Damage spells are mostly terrible.

- cast time is waaaay too long (7 sec+ on some spells)

- cast time is often frontloaded making the spells more likely to be interrupted which in turn makes you LOSE the spell entirely (i.e. 4-6 seconds cast 3 second recovery compared to most abilities that take about 0.5 sec, good spells in the game are all 0.5 sec casts)

- many abilities get accuracy bonuses while offensive spells get none making them significantly more likely to miss

- spells often target reflex or fortitude both of which are MUCH higher than deflection most of the time

- there is no good way to reduce reflex or fortitude without spending MORE spells before or gimping weapons (weapon modals) while there are a ton of efficient ways to reduce deflection and all of them benefit not only your offensive spellcasters but everyone in the party

- damage for many spells is too low considering how terrible offensive spells are to begin with. Weapon damage and especially weapon abilities stomp offensive spells in terms of dps.

- spells dont benefit from group damage buffs like chanters +15% fire for weapon attacks or paladins shared flames of devotion ot anything else for that matter that could be achieved by multiclassing and stacking bonus damage (like soul whip + lightning strikes)

- Spells are extremely limited since you only get 2 per level. So the characters that use normal resources can spend these on their best ability over and over again. With spells you only get you best ability 2 times (1 time right after you get it which is horrendous, meanwhile ability users get maximum value right when they can grab something new)

- Spell penetration is (for the most part) not that good. So even if you find someone you can hit with your vs. fortitude spell, chances are he basically just shrugs them off.

- For the same reason spells rely MUCH more on power level (for penetration especially). Making them worse in the early and midgame since getting top quality weapons is really really easy even early on.

- Full casters have no useful passives and obviously lose a ton of inhand potential because of that.

- nuking enemies is much more important than overall dps, making some of the dot spells that have a lot of damage over a long time effectively irrelevant

- friendly aoe on some doesnt help either...

Even if some spells have good numbers all of the other things hold them back

/discuss

Please exclude exploits and that one super useful damage spell in the game you found (there are a few but most druid/wizard/priest damage spells are awful because of the aforementioned reasons) Like ningauths whatever found in his special grimoire.

Please consider that needing other characters or items to make an offensive caster work is effectively just gimping your party in some other regard.

Suggested solutions: Give all damage spells +accuracy (A LOT like 20 or sth). This would deal with the biggest issue spellcasters currently have. Spells arent lost when the initial cast is interrupted.

AeonsLegend

Posted 17 June 2018 - 09:17 AM

AeonsLegend

(5) Thaumaturgist

Members

596 posts

In many games mages and such are weak early. Spells become stronger later. I do agree that most of the spells are a tad weak. Still Minoletta's missile barrage can one shot most enemies. I think they toned down their power in favor of per encounter use.

Zelse

Posted 17 June 2018 - 10:33 AM

Zelse

(2) Evoker

Members

98 posts

In many games mages and such are weak early. Spells become stronger later. I do agree that most of the spells are a tad weak. Still Minoletta's missile barrage can one shot most enemies. I think they toned down their power in favor of per encounter use.

There is no spell by that name in the vanilla game.

I assume you are refering to the rank 9 Spell Minolettas missile salvo or a special spell that can only be found in one of the tomes. If so please enlighten me where to find it.

Either way you still only get 2 casts. You probably miss anyway because youre rolling against reflex, and whatever damage number the missile spells below rank9 in the game have is just pathetic. My auto attacks do the same amount. A character that does nothing until max level is not well designed.

Btw i hit enemies for 120+dmg openers at lvl 13 and they are still above 50% hp.

Maia crits fampyrs with accurate wounding shot at level 15 for 81+33fire weapon bonus+chanter passive + 18raw (and they dont really care about it actually) (at 4.8 seconds total action time attack+recovery). Ohh and some where mid ranks she also gets a bounce for 50% damage. So yea, total of somewhere around 200 damage in 1 shot.

*edit: im not even sure chanter passive applied might have been pure weapon fire bonus LUL, those were the numbers i got either way

Zelse

Posted 17 June 2018 - 11:17 AM

Zelse

(2) Evoker

Members

98 posts

There are at least 3 good minoletta spells available. The one that bounces is incredibly good when empowered.

aight ill give you bounding missiles thats A decent spell,not great but decent, but as i said in the initial post. 1 decent spell doesnt carry the class. (We are actually doing that one exact thing. Talking about that one good spell that you found in between all the crappy ones)

at level 15 i get 8.5 penetration before buffs on bounding misslles with aloth as fighter/mage. Which is objectively terrible and pretty much not doing anything against anyone. Even after food you get 10.5

(for comparison legendary sabres at that level have 11 pen base)

they dont get accuracy bonuses either (see opening post)

and you get a total number of 2 casts per fight

Fun fact: The missiles are one of the few spells that targets deflection (making them slightly less crappy) --> see initial post as well.

1TTFFSSE

Posted 17 June 2018 - 12:37 PM

1TTFFSSE

(5) Thaumaturgist

Members

527 posts

Spells are actually balanced in terms of damage. casting time though could be a bit faster, like 33 percent faster. Scroll/Arcana use, on the other hand, is still too strong. no need to use real spells when scrolls are way stronger and faster to use on a high arcana character at the moment.

Also to the poster above 70 damage may not be much but on a group of adds it is quite a bit if you hit 5-8 enemies at once.

Shadenuat

Posted 17 June 2018 - 12:57 PM

Shadenuat

(7) Enchanter

Members

900 posts

Location:Russia

It's about 900 damage per cast since it's AOE. it's just an 11 level gal, no empower, ring +10 acc on fire but that's all the "build".

But even without AOE you can nuke **** hard with minoletta spells. Penetration rises with your power level as you gain levels, just target lowest enemy armor with a correct spell or even graze them do deff.

You don't get 2 casts, there are damaging spells on every level

Everyone has similar stats, you just have to use buffs/debuffs right

Even champ got hit due to conversion of grazes. And so what? If you kill everything with spells but 1 dude standing, you win.

I had druid fury do 200k damage per playthrough with companions

Monks/Rogues are OP though since they can do crazy damage while being single target DD, which makes casters who target multiple enemies look meh in comparison. (this run so far: Lina 72400, Monk Helwalker 63900, generally wizard kills chaff, monk focuses down 1-2 most threatening targets with stunning fist; but sometimes I just select>left click which means fighters do better, I don't micro every caster to it's best at all times)

Only thing I find bad design is that single target/difficult to land spells have same accuracy as fireballs. Derp touch/line/cone/ninagauth's bolt should have bonus accuracy compared to circle spells.

Zelse

Posted 17 June 2018 - 01:41 PM

Zelse

(2) Evoker

Members

98 posts

It's about 900 damage per cast since it's AOE. it's just an 11 level gal, no empower, ring +10 acc on fire but that's all the "build".

But even without AOE you can nuke **** hard with minoletta spells. Penetration rises with your power level as you gain levels, just target lowest enemy armor with a correct spell or even graze them do deff.

You don't get 2 casts, there are damaging spells on every level

Everyone has similar stats, you just have to use buffs/debuffs right

I mean in this specific instance you only get 1 cast because you had to set it up with expose vulnerabilities otherwise im pretty sure the 7 penetration base fireball does get penalized heavily (probably at 50% less damage at that point since its always rounded down as far as i have seen) against one of the lowest armor enemy types in the game.

Kappa

So your other rank 3 spell is already gone

Whatever, let the thread die... Ill just stick to inhands. Theres clearly not many people who agree at this point in time.

Shadenuat

Posted 17 June 2018 - 01:58 PM

But dude Expose Vulnerabilities base time is like 20 sec base. And it helps EVERYONE in party since it's -deflection, -armor, it's an AOE interrupt too, targets will, so why not cast it

Also it's kinda strange to say oh you had a debuff, well, yeah, for wizards u stack this; for fighters you stack uber items best perks best classes etc. until you can post beautiful pictures of you killing some stronk dude while you're level 20 packed with best metagamed ****.

Wizard/Druid don't need this, they're good all game just because they have spells.

Suen

Posted 17 June 2018 - 01:58 PM

Suen

(4) Theurgist

Members

399 posts

Unfortunately this is by design, and they will not change it.

The whole magic system has been rebuilt around the idea that the players should use the same one or two spells over and over again. So unless you stick to "that" spell, you gimp yourself (but anyways there is a good chance that they will nerf any spell deviating from mediocrity)

The penetration really doesnt help (the deflection is great tho for your NON SPELLCASTERS *hint hint* since getting more pen after you already do 100% is generally not getting anywhere (double the enemies armor in pen is mostly unrealistic/not worth)

Also you now have to at least hit 2 rolls (expose and fireball) which makes it soo much worse.

Scion of flame is another one of these great examples why spellcasters suck actually. Like you have to spend 1 ability point for 1 pen for EVERY DAMAGE TYPE?? (fire is obviously king just because of the ring). Just make it 1 talent for all spells like cipher.

Also im not sure how you get 10.3 pen base at level 11 on fireball. I have 8.5pen on minolettas bounding missiles at level 15 (4 higher than you if what u said is true). Min. Bd. Missiles is the same spell rank and has the same base pen. Scion of flame should put you at around 9 at best.

Tenacious and food are great ways to go around these things anyway but still curious. Pen food is kinda expensive early on and the good might inspirations are hard to get outside of monk.

I kind of want you to show off a screen doing something similair against some of the hard encounters that actually matter...

Spoiler

Like the Death guard under beraths temple, or the the fight immediately after getting the coronett of waves out of the water. Both of these are undead as well so you should be able to at least hit them. Kappa

But to be fair it wouldnt change anything for me either way even if you could pull it off Most encounters that matter arent designed in a way that you can carefully set up and aoe by funneling everyone into a choke and melees are low priority. If i die its almost always to casters and/or gunners/archers. And these guys dont clump up for a 15 enemy 900 damage fireball.

meh, i think i should go to sleep D:

Unfortunately this is by design, and they will not change it.

The whole magic system has been rebuilt around the idea that the players should use the same one or two spells over and over again. So unless you stick to "that" spell, you gimp yourself (but anyways there is a good chance that they will nerf any spell deviating from mediocrity)

It's crappy, it's boring, and intended.

I dont think its that simple. Nobody would bother making a ton of spells and improving the effects only to make it all terrible on purpose. I think they actually believe spells are good. Im mostly just trying to convince the devs to reconsider their standpoint

Shadenuat

Posted 17 June 2018 - 02:35 PM

Shadenuat

(7) Enchanter

Members

900 posts

Location:Russia

Didnt know it was cheesy when I did this on my 1st playthrough with no savescumming simply because it was Eder who acted as a sacrificial lamb to touch the strange thingy, as he had highest con/athletics. Once death came I clicked escape on him since he was fighter/rogue. Hilariously encounter also somewhat broke since I only found 2 last skeletons after I killed first pack only later.

You can totally pull ranged enemies around LOS blockers just like melees, although I usually kill them after melees stick to tank with my rogues/monks/barbarians/ranged dudes.

Some spells are weaker than others is true though. I think Wizard's 1st level spells are the example of how every level of spells should be. There's literally no completely useless stuff there. You want almost everything.

baldurs_gate_2

Posted 17 June 2018 - 05:40 PM

baldurs_gate_2

(7) Enchanter

Members

863 posts

Chillfog is very strong. Maybe the strongest early game spell. It even blinds enemies. Empowered Minoletta" Concussive Missile (PL IV) can even kill a group of Eoten in one cast and you get it with Level 10 at Multiclass.

I agree that 2 casts for one PL are not enough. It was enough with brilliant aura, but it does not exist anymore. And they should make more passives i agree.